Anderson Crow, Detective Part 44

"It ain't our fault if you married a woman twice as big as you are," was the marshal's stern rejoinder. "Now, remember the plan. We're just droppin' in to surprise 'em, to sort of join in the service. Don't fer the land's sake, let 'em see we're uneasy about 'em. We got to use diplomacy. Look pleasant, ever'body,--look happy. Now, then,--forward march! Laugh, dern you, Alf!"

Once more they advanced, chatting volubly, and with faces supposed to be wholly free from anxiety. The merest glance, however, would have penetrated the mask of unconcern. Every man's eye belied his lips.

"I make a motion that we tar an' feather Deacon Rank," said Newt Spratt, as the foremost neared the porch.

Anderson halted them abruptly.

"I want to warn you men right now, that I'm going to search all the cellars in town tomorrow, so you might as well be prepared to empty all your cider into Smock's Crick. You don't need to say you ain't got any on hand. I've been investigatin' for several weeks, an' I want to tell you right here an' now that I've got every cask an' every bottle of hard cider in Tinkletown spotted. I know what's become of every derned apple that was raised in this township last year."

Dead silence followed this heroic speech. Citizens looked at each other, and Situate M. Jones might have been heard to mutter something about "an all-seeing Providence."

Ed Higgins lamely explained that he had "put up a little for vinegar,"

but Anderson merely smiled.

The front door of the house flew open and several of the first ladies of Tinkletown crowded into view. An invisible choir was singing the Doxology.

"h.e.l.lo, boys!" called out Mrs. Jones, cheerily. "Come right in! Where's zat nice old deacon?"

"Been waiting for him for nawful long time," said Mrs. Pratt. "Couldn't wait any louder,--I mean longer."

"You had it right the first time," said her husband.

"Just in time for Doxology," called out Mrs. Jones. "Then we're all going down town to hol' open-air temp-rance meet-meeting."

Late that evening, Marshal Crow mounted the steps leading to Dr. Brown's office and rang the bell. He rang it five or six times without getting any response. Then he opened the door and walked in. The doctor was out.

On a table inside the door lay the slate on which people left word for him to come to their houses as soon as he returned. The Marshal put on his gla.s.ses and took up the pencil to write. One side of the slate was already filled with hurried scribbling. He squinted and with difficulty made out that Dr. Brown was wanted immediately at the homes of Situate M. Jones, Abbie Nixon, Newton Spratt, Mort Fryback, Professor Rank, Rev.

Maltby and Joseph P. Singer. He sighed and shook his head sadly. Then he moistened a finger and erased the second name on the list, that of Mrs.

Abbie Nixon.

"Husbands first," he muttered in justification of his action in subst.i.tuting the following line:

"Come at once. A. Crow, Marshal of Tinkletown."

Compunction prevailed, however. He wrote the word "over" at the bottom and, turning the slate over, cleared his conscience by jotting down Mrs.

Nixon's "call" at the top of the reverse side. Replacing it on the table, he went away. Virtue was its own reward in this instance at least, for the worthy marshal neglected to put the slate down as he had found it. Mrs. Nixon's "call" alone was visible.

He set out to find Harry Squires. That urbane gentleman was smoking his reportorial corn-cob in the rear of Lamson's store. Except for Lamson's clerk, who had seized the rare opportunity to delve uninterruptedly into the mysteries of the latest "Nick Carter," the store was empty. The usual habitues were absent.

"Did you get her home?" inquired Anderson in a low, cautious tone.

"I did," said Harry.

"See anything of the deacon?"

"No; but Bill Smith did. Bill saw him down at the crick an hour or so ago, knocking in the heads of three or four barrels. Do you know what I've been thinking, Anderson? If somebody would only empty a barrel or so of olive oil into Smock's Crick before morning, we'd have the foundation for the largest supply of French dressing ever created in the history of the world."

Mr. Crow looked scandalized. "Good gosh, Harry, ain't we had enough scandal in this here town today without addin' anything French to it?"

The only moral to be attached to this story lies in the brief statement that Mrs. Crow's indisposition, slight in duration though it was, so occupied Mr. Crow's attention that by the time he was ready to begin his search the second night after the song service, there wasn't so much as a pint of hard cider to be found in Tinkletown. This condition was due in a large measure, no doubt, to the fact that Smock's Creek is an unusually swift little stream. It might even be called turbulent.

"JAKE MILLER HANGS HIMSELF"

"Have you heard the latest news?" inquired Newt Spratt, speaking in a hushed voice. He addressed Uncle Dad Simms, the town's oldest inhabitant, whom he met face to face at the corner of Main and Sickle streets one fine morning in May. Now any one in Tinkletown would tell you that it was the sheerest folly to address Uncle Dad in a hushed voice. Mr. Spratt knew this as well as he knew his own name, so it should be easy to understand that the "news" was of a somewhat awe-inspiring nature. Ordinarily Newt was a loud-mouthed, jovial soul; you could hear him farther and usually longer than any other male citizen in Tinkletown. But now, he spoke in a hushed voice.

Uncle Dad put his hand up to his left ear and said "Hey?" This seemed to bring Mr. Spratt to his senses. He started violently, stared hard for a moment at the octogenarian, and then strode off down Main street, shaking his head as much as to say, "There must be something the matter with me. n.o.body ever speaks to him unless he _has_ to."

And Uncle Dad, after gazing for a long time at the retreating figure, resumed his shuffling progress up Main street, pleasantly satisfied that Newt had gone to the trouble to tell him it was a nice day.

Although it would not have occurred to Newt, in his dismal state of mind, to look upon the day as a nice one, nevertheless it was. The sun was shining brightly, (but without Newt's knowledge), and the air was soft and balmy and laden with the perfume of spring. Birds were twittering in the new green foliage of the trees, but Newt heard them not; dogs frisked in the sunshine, wagging their tongues and tails, but Newt saw them not; hens cackled, horses whinnied, children laughed, and all the world was set to music, but Newt was not a happy man.

He was not a happy man for the simple reason that everybody else in town had heard the "news" long before it reached him. For half-an-hour or more he had been putting that same old question to every one he met; indeed, he even went out of his way five or six blocks to ring the front door bell at the home of William Grimes, night watchman at Smock's Warehouse, rousing him from a sound sleep in order to impart the "news"

to him, only to have Bill call him a lot of hard names while making it clear that he had heard it before going to bed for the day.

The more Newt thought of it, the more he realized that it was his duty to go back and look up Uncle Dad Simms, even though it meant yelling his head off when he found him; it was a moral certainty that the only person in Tinkletown who _had_n't heard it was Uncle Dad,--and he would take a lot of telling.

The _Weekly Banner_ would not be out till the following day; for at least twenty hours Uncle Dad would remain in the densest ignorance of the sensation that had turned Tinkletown completely upside down.

Somebody ought to tell him. Somebody ought to tell poor old Uncle Dad Simms, that was all there was about it.

Moved by a sharp thrill of benevolence, Mr. Spratt retraced his steps, an eager look in his eyes. He found the old man standing in the broad, open door of Bill Kepsal's blacksmith shop. The blacksmith's a.s.sistant was banging away with might and main at his anvil, and Uncle Dad wore a pleased, satisfied smile on his thin old lips. He always said he loved to stand there and listen to the faint, faraway music of the hammer on the anvil, so different from the hammers and anvils they used to have when he was a boy,--when they were so blamed noisy you couldn't hear yourself think.

Newt took him by the arm and led him away. He was going to tell him the "news," but he wasn't going to tell it to him there. The only place to tell Uncle Dad anything was over in the Town Hall, provided it was unoccupied, and thither he conducted the expectant old man. As they mounted the steps leading to the Hall, Uncle Dad's pleased expression developed into something distinctly audible--something resembling a cackle of joy. Mr. Spratt favoured him with a sharp, apprehensive glance.

"Are they goin' to hold the inquest as soon as all this?" shouted Uncle Dad, putting his lips as close as possible to Newt's ear.

Newt stopped in his tracks.

"Have _you_ heard it?" he bellowed.

"What say?"

"I say, _have you heard it_?"

"Speak up! Speak up!" complained Uncle Dad. "You needn't be afraid of _him_ hearin' you, Newt. He's been dead for six or eight hours."

"My G.o.d!" groaned Newt.

For the second time that morning he left Uncle Dad high and dry, and started swiftly homeward. There was the possible, but remote chance that his wife hadn't heard the news,--and if she had heard it, she'd hear from him! He'd let her know what kind of a wife she was!

Never, within memory, had he failed to be the first person in Tinkletown to hear the news, and here he was on this stupendous occasion, the last of them all. And why? Because he had taken that one morning to perform a peculiarly arduous and intensive bit of hard work up in the attic of his wife's house. He had chosen the attic because Mrs. Spratt rather vehemently had refused to let him use the parlour, or even the kitchen.

And all the time that he was up in the attic, working his head off trying to teach his new fox terrier pup how to stand on its hind legs and jump over a broom stick, this startling piece of news was sweeping from one end of Tinkletown to the other.